Chris Beard of Mozilla Labs announced a new project for “deeper integration of the browser with online services.” The goals include:

• provide a basic set of optional Mozilla-hosted online services
• ensure that it is easy for people to set up their own services with freely available open standards-based tools
• provide users with the ability to fully control and customize their online experience, including whether and how their data should be shared with their family, their friends, and third-parties
• respect individual privacy (e.g. client-side encryption by default with the ability to delegate access rights)
• leverage existing open standards and propose new ones as needed
• build a extensible architecture like Firefox
  

This is an exciting and very necessary development for Mozilla. As personal data storage is moved from the desktop to the Net, client-side encryption is essential for privacy and security. It is inevitable that the companies offering web apps will suffer a shakeout and some will fold. And security breaches are a fact of online life.

I’m looking forward to integrating this into the ISubuntu project.